3 ways to take your customer support to the next level

Emily | 21/08/2013

casengo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/climbing.png Good is the enemy of great. Sounds familiar? It’s the first sentence of Jim Collins’ management classic From Good to Great. It's a fantastic line. Good customer support, too, is the enemy of great customer support. We're thinking of adorning our office walls with something like:From good to great customer support software. No, we don't think many customer support tools out there are great. Most are merely good. They offer too many bells and whistles - stuff you don't need, yet pay for. But back to the point: how can your customer support team take the leap from good to great?

Customer support tip #1: Be as one What irritates a customer a lot is receiving multiple contradictory tips from different customer support representatives. To be able to offer consistently good service, your support team should work like a well-functioning machine, with every gear oiled and every team member on the same page. Sing on the same hymn sheet, as a Guardian journalist puts it joyfully.

**Customer support tip #2:Be quick** Whether you’re a 2-person team or a huge conglomerate, waiting 48 hours before responding to a customer query is too long. Speed is one of the fundamental aspects of good customer service. And to get up to speed, all the components of your service need to be aligned perfectly. Be aware of the fact that most of your online visitors are pressed for time. They want the information they’re looking for as fast as possible. So make sure that your customer support tool is simple enough for all agents to quickly see which customer query has been answered already, and what else needs to be done. Even better is a tool that allows you to view all of your customer support actions in one place.

**Customer support tip #3: Be proactive These days, if a customer wants something, he’ll want it right that second. If you don’t sell it – or if they’re not sure that you do – they’ll look for it somewhere else: on the most crowded, international marketplace ever, called the internet.Socatch your online visitor’s attention while you can. Why don't you show a chat button on the webpage he’s visiting? Getting one of those is less complicated than you think (especially if you have a WordPress website, which will do all the technical work for you). You could even end up using chat proactively, making a conversation bubble pop up whenever the online visitor shows indications of interest. Also, don’t forget to reach out to your customers where they love spending time: on social media platforms. Customer service is not just about sending emails. People love talking to (or about!) you on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Taking the the leap** When you’re ready to make the leap, give Casengo a try. This new cloud application for customer support blends the best of email and chat. It’s aimed specifically at small business owners (like webshops), who use Casengo to deliver the right answer to their (potential) customers more readily and at once. First user is always and forever free, so there’s absolutely no risk to try it out, really. Every company yearns to make the leap from good to great. I'm sure you heard many times that the quality of customer service mirrors the quality of the company. I’d like to turn it around: your company will shine as brightly as your customer service does. You’ll be just like Amazon. People will love you.